Rename files in group

Question

I've folder and file structure like


Folder/1/fileNameOne.ext
Folder/2/fileNameTwo.ext
Folder/3/fileNameThree.ext
...

How can I rename the files such that the output becomes


Folder/1_fileNameOne.ext
Folder/2_fileNameTwo.ext
Folder/3_fileNameThree.ext
...

How can this be achieved in linux shell?

Look for 'rename' command, that support regexp rename http://askubuntu.com/questions/175281/rename-files-by-regexp-in-command-line — hute37, Apr 16 '13 at 14:43

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 11 '13 at 15:44

Here is a bash script that does that:

Note: This script does not work if any of the file names contain spaces.

#! /bin/bash

# Only go through the directories in the current directory.
for dir in $(find ./ -type d)
do
    # Remove the first two characters. 
    # Initially, $dir = "./directory_name".
    # After this step, $dir = "directory_name".
    dir="${dir:2}"

    # Skip if $dir is empty. Only happens when $dir = "./" initially.
    if [ ! $dir ]
    then
        continue
    fi

    # Go through all the files in the directory.
    for file in $(ls -d $dir/*)
    do
        # Replace / with _
        # For example, if $file = "dir/filename", then $new_file = "dir_filename"
        # where $dir = dir
        new_file="${file/\//_}"

        # Move the file.
        mv $file $new_file
    done

    # Remove the directory.
    rm -rf $dir
done

Copy-paste the script in a file.
Make it executable using

chmod +x file_name

Move the script to the destination directory. In your case this should be inside Folder/.
Run the script using ./file_name.

Rename files in group

1 Answers1